Samsung’s built-in storage chips might make microSD slots a thing of the past

07Dec

MicroSD storage expansion slots are a feature that is slowly but surely disappearing from high-end smartphones, with “cloud-focused” smartphone manufacturers such as Google or Apple leading the pack. However, at least Samsung users can stop worrying about a lack of expandable storage in the near future, because the built-in storage in their devices should soon be large enough to never need a microSD card in the first place.

The Korean electronics giant has officially started mass production of the world’s first 512GB embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS). This means Samsung’s 2018 flagship smartphones may have double the storage of this year’s equivalents.

Users will be able to store up to 130 10-minute video clips at UHD resolution on these new chips, and read & write speeds have been improved as well, reaching 860MB per second and 255MB per second respectively. That is fast enough to transfer a 5GB video clip to an SSD in around six seconds. It is also eight times faster than a standard microSD card, making the internal storage solution much more suitable to anyone who requires fast data transfer.

Samsung says it is planning to steadily increase production volume to meet increasing demand for its high-capacity mobile storage, so hopefully we’ll see the big chips coming to other manufacturers very soon as well.